


A Burning

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Captain Flint is still very much alive, M/M, POV switch, aggressive sex, arguing and heavy angst, behavorial addiction, set in peach verse, sex to express emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:02:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: Thomas catches a glimpse of Captain Flint and is forced to come to terms with him rather quickly.“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”― Edgar Allan Poe(I'm not putting this one in the peach verse series because I think it's more of a post-finale stand-alone, but in my mind it's still set in peach verse).





	A Burning

He stormed inside the house with James hot on his heels.

“Why can’t you believe me?” he asked over his shoulder, trying to keep his voice at a normal decibel. James stepped inside behind him, slamming the door shut.

“Because you told me how you felt,” replied James in earnest. “How you _feel_.”

Thomas closed his eyes and sighed. How had they gotten here?

“It _was_ how I felt,” he said, turning around. James still stood in front of the door, arms open and face flushed.

“But it isn’t something that I meant to be acted upon,” Thomas added quickly. He was actually gesturing at James, hands flailing up and down. He had only ever gotten upset enough to do that around his father.

“But Thomas,” James pleaded, “You must know that in this case no amount of treatises or good intentions will change that place or the countless places like it.”

Thomas gritted his teeth together. “Do not presume to tell me what I must and must not know. I am not some crew member you can manipulate.”

James looked taken aback and the words burned down Thomas’s throat. But then the anger returned to his lover’s face.

“I do not mean to manipulate,” said James. “But that man and that place _deserve_ to be burnt to the ground! And if I could I would do the same to that fucking asylum in London!”

The pain on James’s face was as palpable to Thomas as his anger was. He was so unused to seeing it so raw, so searing. He loathed it, and yet he hadn’t lied: He had told James, in a moment of weakness and old rage, that he had wished Olglethorpe’s plantation were razed to the ground.

Right after he had mentioned, without thinking, that he had been whipped when he had first arrived. Olglethorpe had not ordered it; the guard had been drunk and Thomas was not even out of his manacles yet. The fury that had crossed James’s face was unlike anything he’d ever seen on the other man.

Now Thomas paced across the room to the mantle above the hearth.

“I should not have told you what was done to me,” he said.

“Yes, you should have!”

“James, stop it! Listen to me.”

Thomas came back towards him, hands cupping James’s cheeks to force their eyes to meet.

“You do not have to seek out revenge in my name anymore, do you understand? I am _alive_. I am _here_.”

*

James ripped away from Thomas’s touch, shaking his head. The fury inside him had never been appeased by words. He wished to God it could be.

Thomas couldn’t understand. He had tried to get Thomas to understand, but how could he? They had lived completely different lives, completely different hells for the past decade. Trying to explain Captain Flint to the man he had fallen in love with was like tripping over a never-ending path of sharp rocks, never knowing which ones would cut the most deeply.

“But why?” James asked in dismay. “Why won’t you allow this? You do not have to want it. I don’t _want_ it, but it needs to happen!”

He was yelling again. And Thomas was vehemently shaking his head, lips in a tight line.

"No. I won’t say it again. You cannot force change like this.”

James felt the familiar suffocating sensation in his lungs, his chest starting to heave.

“Thomas, please. Let me do this.”

“No!” came the sharp reply, like a bark.

James blinked. He felt the suffocating feeling rising inside him. It climbed higher and higher. If Thomas did not want this, he would not do it.

He spun around and slammed his fist down on the first surface within range, which happened to be a bookcase. He repeated the motion three more times until the wood cracked, the books on the top shelf spilling all over the floor. Hot pins-and-needles pain shot up his wrist and arm. He ignored it.

“Jesus!” Thomas yelled into the deafening silence that followed. He raked a hand through his hair.

James took a step back from the mess he’d made. His chest was still heaving but the suffocating had faded.

*

Thomas could stand no more of this. He stormed up to James, grabbing his sleeve and turning him around.

“Is this him? Is this Captain Flint?” Thomas asked. “Are you trying to prove to me he still exists? Do I need a show?”

“Thomas…”

“Because I know you, James. Everyone struggles with a darkness inside them. You are no different. I am no different. But _why_ do you need to let the world know?”

“Why?” James hissed out the word. His expression became something Thomas did not recognize, something like…despair? It was gone in the next instant, replaced by something far more malevolent.

“Because they either hate us or they want to hate us!” he raged out into the small space between them. “A pirate, a slave, a woman…” James’s eyes were moist. He gestured helplessly, trembling as he looked away from Thomas. “A man who loves another man; the woman who tried to protect them both. They _deserve_ the wrath of Captain Flint.”

James’s green eyes were cold and calculating. His entire countenance was suddenly cold; dead, and deadly. Despite Thomas’s height advantage James seemed to loom over him. _There he is_ , Thomas thought, _the dread Captain Flint, in my house_. The parts of James’s past Thomas would never fully know began to make some kind of sense to him. God in Heaven, what had James been forced into becoming? Thomas had known torture, but not the kind of self-torture that he was beginning to see that James had put himself through. He wanted to weep, to fall to the floor and cry for him.

Instead he choked it all down and stood close to the face before him, the face that was throbbing with an endless rage.

“I am not afraid of you,” he said to the face.

And the brows above the dead eyes lifted, filling them with emotion. The countenance broke and a tiny, broken noise came from James’s throat.

*

James kissed him, hard. He grabbed Thomas by the back of the neck and forced him into it, lips crashing against lips. He forced his tongue inside Thomas’s mouth and Thomas opened for him. And then Thomas was pushing back against him, meeting his kisses with just as much ferocity, hands pawing at him.

James could not separate the feeling of his own foolishness from the overwhelming and sudden _need_ he had. It wasn’t a physical need exactly but in that moment he knew of no other way to express it.

Thomas did not give a damn about Captain Flint. James wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Of course he had not. And at that moment James did not give a damn about burning down a plantation.

He spun Thomas around and pushed him up against the wall, fingers sliding underneath the bottom of his shirt to feel the familiar curves of muscle and bone. Thomas moaned. He grabbed James’s rear and pulled him into his crotch, rubbing hard against him. James could not stop kissing him all the while, forcing Thomas’s head against the wall and devouring Thomas’s mouth with his own. Thomas pushed him back just enough to speak.

“What do you want?” Thomas rasped out.

“You.”

“How?”

_Every way a person could want another. Endless ways I’ve never been able to fathom,_ he thought.

“Inside me,” he said instead.

Thomas’s nostrils flared, eyes shining like jewels. He started toward the bedroom. James followed, stripping off his boots haphazardly and tossing them aside in the hallway. Thomas did the same. They took off their shirts and James forced their bodies together again, hooking his arm behind Thomas’s back and pulling him in. Thomas’s lean stomach crushed into his. His nipples were stiff against James’s chest. James’s fingers fumbled at Thomas’s belt, unfastening it. He barely paused to reach over to the dresser and pull out a bottle of oil, handing it to Thomas. Thomas poured it over his fingers. James yanked off his trousers. He climbed on the bed on all fours, spreading his knees and looking over his shoulder.

*

Thomas cursed softly, hands trembling. They had not been worked up like this in some time, like two animals in heat. He wasted no time in approaching James. The sight of the pale, round globes of James’s ass and the darker treasure in-between made his cock ache. He dove in greedily, rubbing his oiled fingers all over James’s cleft and then spreading him apart with his thumbs. He drove his tongue up against James’s rim. James’s hole instantly fluttered and he whimpered. Thomas teased it with his fingertip, then licked his cleft from the back of his balls to his hole.

James hissed. Thomas saw the bed sheets crinkle inward from where James was clutching at them. He licked and prodded at James’s hole until he gained entry, sliding one finger in and out. James rolled his hips, moaning for more. Thomas worked him open until James was loose enough. He was too impatient for anymore foreplay and he sensed James was the same.

There would be time afterward to finish smoothing over their argument, he knew. It was a disagreement he would not soon forget. Never before had they ever truly argued as a couple. He had never imagined it would end like this, but it only served to reinforce how much Thomas loved this man before him. Even after all this time he understood James when he did not have the words to express himself; he recognized the raw and overwhelming love beneath all the other layers of emotion James struggled with, perhaps more than ever now. Flint was not gone from him. Thomas did not care. James was James, and he would nourish the man inside the monster for however long it took.

He would also be lying to himself if he ignored the fact that James’s blinding fury, which was all for him, did not touch something primal and lust-filled in him, that it made him want James all the more because of it.

But he supposed that fact was already in the open, considering all of what was happening now.

Thomas climbed on the bed and lay on his back. He stroked his cock and urged James to climb on. James straddled him. He immediately went to work easing Thomas inside him instead of the usual touches and teases. His desperation took Thomas’s breath away.

James sunk down over his cock all the way and Thomas felt his stomach drop pleasantly. He closed his eyes, hands automatically going to James’s hips. He pushed up gently into James and they both grunted. Jesus, was there ever anything sweeter than being buried inside James?

They worked into a rhythm. James leaned forward, one palm beside Thomas’s arm. He arched his back, eyes closed, and moaned as Thomas thrusted inside him. Thomas watched James’s other hand move to work his own cock, knuckles scraping over Thomas’s stomach.

James put his whole body into it, moving his ass over Thomas’s cock in such a way that Thomas could not hold back his moans. He splayed his fingers over James’s ass and spread his cheeks, eager to put as much of his cock inside him as he could.

“Yes, just fuck me,” James said in a lost voice. He carded his fingers through Thomas’s hair and pulled. “Fuck me hard.”

Thomas planted his feet on the mattress and slammed into James. Immediately James let out moan after moan, his body jolting with the force of it.

Thomas stared hard at him, lips parted. His cock throbbed inside of James. He could hear his balls slapping up against James’s flesh.

“Oh, James,” he moaned out, pushing his head back into the pillow, eyes closing.

“I’m close,” said James. His breaths came hard and short. Thomas opened his eyes, watching as James jerked his shaft faster and faster over his stomach. Thomas rolled deep inside him. James moaned again, face contorted and mouth going slack.

He let go of his cock and fucked it back and forth over Thomas’s stomach. Thomas groaned at the sight. Then James cried out as he came, shooting spurts onto Thomas’s chest and to his neck.

Thomas slowed down inside of him, mesmerized by the sight of everything that was James drowning in his moment of ecstasy.

His own cock still ached.

*

James pulled off of Thomas and collapsed upside down on the bed. Thomas struggled up, wiping at the come on his chest. He loomed over James and pushed two fingers to his mouth. James looked at him, overcome at the sight of Thomas’s hooded eyes and still in the throes of their sex, still needing release.

“Fuck,” was all he managed, opening his mouth and tasting his own come as Thomas worked his fingers in and out of his mouth. Then he spread James’s legs, wrapping a wrist under one and hiking it up.

James’s breath stuttered. Thomas pushed his cock back inside and James gasped.

Thomas pounded into him right away and James’s eyes rolled into his head. He wanted this to go on forever.

Thomas was close. He alternated between deep rolls, which made James’s hand curl into fists around the sheets, and sheer, hard fucking.

“Come into my mouth,” James said suddenly. Oh yes, that was what he wanted.

Thomas whimpered. He pulled out and straddled up James until his cock was at his mouth. James sat up on his elbows and opened wide. Thomas pushed in and James delighted in the look of complete bliss that draped over Thomas’s face, mouth going slack as James wrapped his lips around Thomas’s girth.

Thomas fucked him gently but eagerly. James grabbed his ass.

“Please, James, fuck,” Thomas moaned, his voice so broken James wanted to get him off as quickly as he could.

He pressed a finger against Thomas’s rim and that did it. Thomas keened and moments later hot come gushed into James’s mouth. He took down what he could and let the rest coat his face. Thomas squeezed his cock head over his mouth. James sucked at his tip until he was completely finished.

When it was over Thomas reared up and sat up on the bed, trying to catch his breath. James sat up and scooted into his space, their bare legs crossing. He kissed Thomas with as much passion as he had to begin with, and though they were both tired now Thomas met him, kiss for kiss, cleaning the come from him in the process.

James rested his forehead against Thomas’s. The only part better than the sex was this; this realigning of themselves with one another, listening to the other’s breathing slow down and never having to utter a single word for minutes on end.

*

At last they looked at one another.

“I’m sorry,” James said softly.

“So am I,” Thomas replied.

“I will not burn down the plantation,” James followed up.

Thomas smiled. After a beat he asked, “Do you still believe the two of us can affect change?”

Without hesitation James answered him. And just like that, Thomas’s world re-righted itself again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the idea of James being addicted came through in this. I'm not sure if you'd call it an addiction to a way of thinking, of doing violence, or even an addiction to being Flint, because he's grown so accustomed to it that even now it's very difficult for him to let go of that. Problem is, James is highly self-aware so he knows how he is, yet he still feels compelled to push the issue of the plantation to Thomas to the extreme. So yea, addiction.


End file.
